CHENNAI: Hours after presenting the Kottai Ameer Communal Harmony Award 2024 to Alt News’ co-founder Mohammed Zubair, BJP State president K Annamalai on Friday said the award to a biased manipulator is an insult to all recipients of this award in the past.

“The DMK government doesn’t fail to hit a new low every alternate week. The Social Harmony Award to a biased manipulator on Republic Day is an insult to all recipients of this award in the past. Creating Social Disharmony would be the right category to place this person,” Annamalai said in a social media post alluding to the Zubair’s track records.

Slamming the ruling DMK, the saffron party leader said, “DMK’s choice doesn’t surprise us, as they continue to call a suicide bombing a cylinder blast and they have developed a new liking for 'half-truth peddlers' under the disguise of fact-checkers.”

“Tax money is down the drain, but does it matter to the DMK government?” he questioned.

Earlier in the day, during the Republic Day celebrations at Marina, Chief Minister MK Stalin handed over the Kottai Ameer Communal Harmony Award 2024 to Alt News’ co-founder Mohammed Zubair for analysing the veracity of the news coming out on social media and to prevent the occurrence of violence in society likely to be caused by fake news.